Psyche & Substance Color Ebook
We excitedly present to you the book Psyche & Substance: Plant Medicine in The Bush of Ghosts.
Author Dr. Kenneth Proefrock is an incomparable natural healer, and incontrovertibly one of this age’s most outstanding psychonauts –– a persistent and courageous explorer of both human and planetary consciousness. He’s a sparkling-eyed traveler of unfamiliar paths as well as a keeper of timeless wisdom and celebrant of mysteries, an unconventional but in many ways pragmatic herbalist, a modern day medicine man and spiritual interlocutor , a hands-on cocreator and beauty wielding sculptor of reality! And as the following chapters make ever so clear, he’s also a wordsmith extraordinaire.
Proefrock’s teachings in Psyche & Substance are no less than cosmic, not in the sense of out of or beyond this world of flesh and plant and fire, but in the sense of the vast and the limitless wherein the microcosm and the macrocosm not only inform each other but in league constitute what is a symphonic and dynamic wholeness. And who else can so powerfully bring together in a single essay or presentation the chemistry and energetics of herbs and the workings of organ systems, the balanced powers of both logic and magic, cultural traditions and scientific approaches, astronomy and metallurgy, the revealing symbology of vampires and the lessons and implications of ancient martial arts? He at once weaves together the most credible and revealing understandings of botanical medicine, naturopathy, history, anthropology, mind altering plants and fungi, magical and spiritual practice, composing a conceptual world view and actionable structure that begs for our personal customization and deliberate employment.
Prepare to have your mind blown and your dreams enlivened, by revitalizing conversations ranging from the science of consciousness to botanical medicine, from tropane alkaloids and mind expanding Peyote cactus to Otzi the iceman and spiritual Kung Fu, from neuroplasticity and NMDA receptors to techniques for improved physical and mental wellbeing. In this book you’ll be taken to new places you’ve never seen before, as well shown new complexities and possibilities nesting within even the most familiar of knowings. He shows us that all so called “facts” are limited by and colored by our perceptions, and that by unpacking, analyzing and experimenting with our ways of looking at the world we can come to new understandings and find new ways to put them to work enabling our practice and meeting our aims. He helps us to recognize how our practices, endeavors, and ultimately our very lives and personal satisfaction can benefit from reassessments and rigorous testing, fluid conceptions and reconfigurations.
Kenneth is not offering to us any exacting keys to enlightenment, but rather, he cleverly and joyfully bursts open the locks on the treasure chest of infinite possibility and invites us to rummage, discover, reassemble and put to good use all that we find within. Nor does he foist upon us any given notion or system. Instead, he fascinatingly inspires our sensate embodiment, our determined questioning and persistent explorations, encouraging our proactive engagement and manifestation, making our healing, artistic, activist and other practices visibly more effective, fueling and reforming the crucial means for personal fulfillment.
Whether you’re a Plant Healer or a culture-shifter, creator or caregiver, mythologist or futurist, there is ever so much for you here within these pages. Venture, and savor.
CHAPTERS
Foreword by Jesse Wolf Hardin
My Life in The Bush of Ghosts
Wildcrafted Spirituality in the S.W.
Otzi’s Medicine Bag
Our Ancient Ancestors
& The Beginnings of Botanical Medicine
Implications of The Agave
Preservation Rethinking
& The Coevolution of Humans & Plants
Peyote:
Exploring Ancient Plant Sacraments
The Kung Fu of Spiritual Translation
in Transformative Practice
Tempting Fate:
Tropane Alkaloids – Part I
Tempting Fate:
Tropane Alkaloids – Part II
Neuroplasticity & The NMDA Receptor:
Botanical & Nutritional Influences on
Neurological Remodeling – Part I
Neuroplasticity & The NMDA Receptor:
Botanical & Nutritional Influences on
Neurological Remodeling – Part II
Improving Neuroplasticity & Mental Adaptability
With Botanical Medicine & Physical Activity
Memory as Medicine
The Persistence of Memory
Lost in Translation:
Epigenetics, Mental Health &
Botanical Medicine I
Lost in Translation:
Epigenetics, Mental Health &
Botanical Medicine II
The Uncanniest of Valleys
Clawed Frogs, Vampires, & Vitalism
Author’s Bio